A bit of a back and forth between Profs. Reynolds and Althouse on Instapundit over the Daily Caller’s latest video, and her own blog, is interesting. It’s very rare that I find myself in disagreement with Glenn Reynolds on a topic, but in this case I have to agree with Ann Althouse. I think to any extent that conservatives drag racial issues into this election, it will benefit the Obama Campaign, even if objectively you might have a point. The reason is, because as Prof. Althouse puts it:
Politics, like any other human endeavor, entails human emotion, and unless you want to turn away from politics altogether, you have to play within reality that exists. The emotions around race are deep and complex. I recommend not toying with them. Move to something more optimistic and positive.
If there’s anything true about how we approach issues of race in this country, it is almost never with objectivity or rationality. It is a touchy subject, because there is a lot of awful history there we’re not that distant from. I get that a lot of people want to show that Obama isn’t the post-racial President he was sold to the public as, but playing the race card is playing with fire, and we’re best leaving that topic alone. There are plenty of criticisms of the President that don’t involve Rev. Wright or issues of race.
If this election was about anything that actually mattered, we’d be 10 points up by now. But it’s not. It’s about Obama’s “likeability,” and anything that damages it without touching Romney in any way is helpful in my book.
How’s optimistic and positive been working out so-far?
I’ve watched the Daily Caller video, and I’m still having a hard time figuring out what the Gocha is. That he sounds more black when speaking to a black audience? I’m not sure this will hurt him, and I’m not sure it’s not going to be seen an attack on his race.
+1
Continued discussion of this subject is moot. Obama will win. I’d bet a case of ammo on it. I can’t speak to everyone, but I’m burned out from caring about this.
1) I live in a solidly blue state. My presidential vote DOES NOT COUNT
2) This makes the NRA political spam even more moot in my case – which adds to the annoyance
3) If we’re really at risk of a 2nd term Obama nominating activist justices that suspend or destroy the bill of rights (2a), our time would be better spent planning.
If my private gun club didn’t require 100% NRA membership, I’d consider writing them a letter and asking not to renew. I’m that frustrated with how gun politics are being handled in this election.
Because planning for the worst case is clearly better than trying to avert the worst case. You may also live in a blue state, but that’s not to say you can’t do things for the cause that could sway votes in swing states.
Like House and Senate seats. For all the damage Obama can do, he needs a lot of help from Congress. Vote for a split government.
This is true. Of course, to get rid of of Obamacare, divided government will never work. We have to get rid of Obamacare in the next four years. If we don’t, we’ll never get rid of it.
Even in a solidly blue state, your vote counts, and this is why.
Let’s say that Romney somehow manages to win the Electoral College. (It’s going to be a squeaker, because of the great job Obama has done on the economy, alternative energy, civil liberties, foreign policy, and Fast & Furious.) But what if Romney loses the popular vote? All sorts of screaming about how he doesn’t have a mandate. etc.
Romney needs all the votes that he can get. If Obama is going to win (and this country is so sick it might do it), I want that victory to be by the smallest of margins.
Hear, hear. I saw another conservative pundit blogger slam Althouse within minutes of her initial objection and thought his criticism was lacking. And frankly, he made her point very well. This video is from 2007; if McCain didn’t take advantage of it during the ’08 election, how is this supposed to benefit Romney?
Your point hinges on a presumed competence of the McCain 2008 campaign that’s I failed to see.
Actually, my point hinges on whether this “October surprise” is really beneficial to Romney, which it isn’t.
I actually think it might be beneficial for Romney, in a quiet, let’s keep it in the blogosphere sort of way; I think Sebastian is right, though, that Romney would do well to pretend the video doesn’t even exist!
The one we in particular should be pushing is the one where “a young Illinois state senator spoke on Martin Luther King Day, and explained that nonviolence as a principle is attractive to rich people because they don’t want anyone to take their stuff.“
if people were interested in facts and records and who barack obama actually is and what he stands for, he never would have been president in the first place. his supporters tuned this stuff out a long time ago. anyone who would have been swayed away from obama by this video already wanted nothing to do with him. the whole thing was pointless. To deliver that after all of the hype yesterday is kind of pathetic. I was told there would be a bombshell, I learned nothing new…..
I saw the video and as far as I can tell it’s a reiteration about his Socialism and radically un-American perspective. Again, Race is being used as a deflector-shield by the Media attempting to re-purpose the argument and place the blame on the “Whitest White Man of Privilege and Wealth Who Ever Ran” – Romney.
To borrow a comment from her site,
Obama speaks racism in 2007 and I look ugly.
A black woman admits she sold her vote for a free cell phone, and I look ugly.
Obama takes over the UW Madison campus for a campaign event and I look ugly.
Christ almighty.
As to McCain, you’ll remember the head of his campaign told him if he attacked Obama on a number of things, “I’ll quit.” The proper response would have been to say “Don’t let the doorknob hit your ass on the way out”; instead McCain rolled over and played dead. Just because he didn’t use this stuff doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be used.
The good news is that I finally saw a Romney bumper sticker over the weekend. (I live in Idaho, and the Obama stickers are everywhere.)
A problem I’ve seen developing for a long time is that as people become conditioned to their own team’s Kool-Aid (or make that, conditioned to salivating to their own team’s ringing bell) they lose their sense of how it affects the general population. They come to overestimate it. Once a propagandist reaches that point, they’re done for.
I join the crowd who just don’t see what button that 2007 video is supposed to push; thinking it will be effective at swaying anyone still on the fence seems desperate, but as tactics go it’s probably just and indication of an ear turned to tin.